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The Swimming Analogy

So, it came to me the other day when I was watching my son’s swimming lesson. He’s at that stage where he is starting to put it all together – the arms, the legs, the breathing…It’s hard. I was never a natural swimmer so I feel for him. Last week he did it all, but it was…weird…it was clunky.

It was hard to fault – his arms were rotating well, his legs were kicking nicely, but it looked wrong. It seemed mechanical and awkward. Like he was thinking about it too much instead of just doing it. And that’s when it came to me.

This is that extra something that many students and teachers miss when they are learning to read or teaching children to read. You can have all the technical aspects, and yet your reading can still be clunky and mechanical and awkward. I often get told about, and meet myself, students who can “read”. They read texts at their level, and yet they are missing something. Often it’s pinned down as a lack of comprehension. However, when you talk to these students, it is often clear they are getting the story. There is no obvious reason why they aren’t fully comprehending the story, why they’re not “reading”.

So, you explicitly teach them comprehension strategies, and they do really well at that. You chat, you explain, you connect, you relate, and it seems that they get it. They appear to be doing everything they need to do to be successful readers, but they remain unsuccessful.

It is my thinking that they are swimming like my son. They have all the skills, but they’re having trouble putting them together. It hasn’t come naturally, so it’s still a little clunky.

Now, if my son is going to get any better at swimming, he must practice. He must fail. He must practice again. He must keep going. He must observe others and imitate them. He must practice!

What is clear to me is that these students are, most of all, lacking in practice. We must give them the time and skills and opportunities to practice their reading so that it can become smooth and fluent. So that everything works together well. If we are not doing that, we are not helping them learn to read. (this will apply to writing too!)

The Bath Analogy

We used to live in an apartment in central Wellington. That was the place we bought my firstborn home to. We didn’t have a bath, just a shower. We lived there for just over two years and in all that time we used one of those plastic planter buckets, the big flexible ones that come in different colours, for him to bath in. Ours was green.

Our son was very happy in that bath. We would put in in the bottom of the shower and run the shower head down into it. We used bubble bath. He loved to have his hair combed through in the shower. As he got older, he played more and more in the bath. And he got bigger.

One day I realised he could do with a bigger bath. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before. He was happy, he could still fit, but it just wasn’t as fun as it could be.

I randomly connected this to reading one day – sometimes kids just need a bigger bath to play in. I often find teachers are holding their students back with their reading, for whatever reason. It is easy to say, well, they’re doing well with this, so why challenge them more? But really, they need that bigger bath. The conditions can remain the same, but the space that they have to stretch themselves with their reading needs to be extended. Given the opportunity, you can be mighty surprised at what students can show you.

It was an inauspicious start to my morning’s observations out and about in the Wellington region. My car battery was flat and I had to call Roadside Rescue. 30 minutes and $205 later (for a new battery), I was on my way again, doubting if I would actually manage to see anything at the places I was going due to running out of time.

But, I made it to Wainuiomata, a place where I can’t remember the last time I’d been to it. Also, amazed at this place appearing over a hill. It’s like a whole little world, but is still part of Welly! I was going to visit Kristen Fraser – a teacher who had answered my call on the NZ primary facebook page (finally, it was good for something for me!) for teachers who were using mixed ability groupings in their classroom, particularly for reading.

It was a short observation, but very sweet. It was one of those lightbulb moments where you say to yourself – Ooohhh!! Of course, that’s how you do it. Why didn’t I think of that? Kristen doesn’t have fixed reading groups at all. All her students have a colour wheel level, which is displayed on the wall (we talked about how some kids might respond well to this, but she has a culture in her class where it is acceptable), and a corresponding box of books is lined up along the wall.

Kristen sits on the mat for her guided readings and each child comes down when called to read. They choose a book from their colour box that they want to read, and then they choose and record a goal to aim for that day. This could be a decoding or comprehension goal. Kristen uses a book to have these recorded each day. Like so:

Then, each child reads their chosen book, focusing on their goal. Kristen does the usual Guided Reading things, except with different goals and texts for each student in mind. Sometimes children have chosen the same book and I saw some chatting away about it during their session. When they finish reading, the students then reflect on the goal with support from the teacher or from some key resources. Like these:

Simple right? It requires a bit of set up early on in the year, explaining strategies and processes, but then pretty much plans itself. Focused on individuals and their goals for reading. As part of a balanced reading programme, I think this method is totally adaptable and doable. I could imagine doing it in my own classroom (if I had one). I will be trying to demonstrate or explain it to other teachers I come across in my job in the hope that they will give it a go.

Ok, I had to explain the title, so that isn’t a great start I realise But every time I reached for this book I thought “gut” in German, meaning “good”. And that is what is book was – good. Pretty good actually, but “Ziemlich gut” really isn’t such a grabbing title.

My Mother read this book in her last year or so and was so influenced by it that she would often mention things in it at many points in many conversations on many occasions. It was the kind of thing that you were just “yeah, yeah Mum, whatever”. I never got around to reading it while she was alive, preferring to tease her about it. I wish I had read it while she was alive now! Small things to make your Mum happy…

I found it really interesting. I can’t say I knew more than the usual about mouth to gut, so it was fascinating to learn about microbes and where things break down and the fact that we have two sphincters (true story!). I have to say, once the book got to all the nitty gritty of different bacteria in the gut my interest started to lag. But if you are into that sort of thing, it was very easy to read and written in plain English mostly (even though I think it was translated from German, so obviously written in that originally…).

One thing I did find disturbing was the amount of mice that are out there having testing done on them! Every study seemed to have some mice in a lab helping us work out which bacteria might help us lose weight or some such thing. Did you know that mice get depressed? And bacteria from the gut of depressed mice transferred into other mice can make them depressed too?

I realise that many of the findings are good for helping us with our health, but I found it immensely sad that some mice had to be made depressed for it. If only there were some better way! All the mice goings on was said so matter of factly too. For me, mice in a lab is kind of a far off concept, so it seemed weird to read about it on every second page.

But, all in all, Gut was good and if you are trying to maintain a good gut, Gut would be a good read. Gut gut!

At the end of September, I attended my second Resource Teacher of Literacy conference in Wellington. 108 of us met to talk and learn under the subject of diversity. It was a strange and abruptly short conference for me, as I ended up missing quite a chunk of it due to first my daughter being ill, and then myself.

The parts I enjoyed most from what I did manage to attend were keynotes from Nathan Mikaere-Wallis and Kathryn Berkett and their follow-up workshops. Nathan Mikaere-Wallis is fast becoming a Kiwi institution and talks some of the most sense in the education field today. Kathryn Berkett also works in the area of educational psychology and was entertaining and informative as well.

Both speakers use the Neurosequential Model as a basis for their content. If you don’t know of the Neurosequential Model, I suggest you accustomise yourself with it. It both fascinating and simple in its complexity! Here is a graphic of it:

In last year’s post on Christian Wright’s presentation, he used the terms “downstairs brain” and “upstairs brain”. Basically, the downstairs was the feeling brain, and the upstairs was the thinking brain.

Kathryn numbered the brains from 1 to 3, joining the first two together, similar to this picture:

– in this sketch, the limbic (thumb) sits cradled between the survival (palm) and the thinking (fingers) brains.

Unfortunately, my notes for the keynotes and workshops for these wonderful people got mixed up so I am just going to share everything I learned in a jumble of goodness. Apologies to Nathan and Kathryn, but their presentations did work together quite well anyway.

The Neurosequential Model works on the basis that children develop from the bottom up. First, in the Number 1 Brain, they learn survival. This is the brain that keeps you safe. Your instincts to protect yourself come from here. Next, comes the movement brain at Number 2. This is coordination and movement. Then comes the 3rd brain, which is the emotions or feeling brain. This one is developed in those first three years, and it is vital.

Only once these 3 brains are established, children begin to develop the 4th brain, the thinking brain. Most students who are having difficulties in school will have blockages in brain 3. Literacy fits into Brain 4.

Interestingly enough, it is now known that a human brain is only fully developed at an average age of 26. For women, it ranges between 18 and 24 and in men between 22 and 32! Girls brains grow faster and mature faster. The order of your birth also makes a huge difference, as firstborn children get all that individual attention at the beginning.

I found it fascinating to discover the reasons why 7 is often considered that magical age where learning really can begin – this is the time when most children are beginning to move from their emotional development into the frontal cortex, the fourth brain. Children used to start school at 6, but New Zealand changed this to 5 during the war, as did many other countries. However, New Zealand did not change it back like many other countries post-war.

The point to having school entry at 6 was to get children socially and emotionally ready for the concrete operational stage starting at 7. All that sitting on the mat, turn taking, listening, etc…was meant to happen in that first year before the “hard” learning began. Since New Zealand didn’t change back to 6, we have children starting school at least 2 years before they are developmentally ready, and yet we are expecting them to develop literacy straight away. Even more than that, we are judging them on how well they do it at 6 with National Standards (hopefully not for much longer!). Seems pretty unfair to me!

Nathan stated that brains 1, 2 and 3 need to be in place before literacy learning starts. If you try to jump to 4 without them, you’re like a builder trying to put the roof on first. At each age, we should be meeting the needs of that age. We shouldn’t be trying to practise being a 7 year old at 3. We need to meet their emotional, limbic system needs. It has been found that those who do large amounts of literacy early on even out anyway later on. Building up the first 3 brains is a worthwhile improvement as you can’t get to the 4th without those 3. In my work as an RTLit, I often find similar situations to this. A relationship must be established between myself and the student and the student must also have the mindset available for learning.

When a child is under 7, it is how clever you THINK you are, not how clever you are that matters. That mindset and disposition are all important for future learning success. We are damaging their attitude towards learning in the first 2 years of school by focussing on their achievement. I agree with this to a large extent – children are developing fixed mindsets far too early these days due to experiencing negative consequences to failure on a day to day basis. Children need a positive disposition of themselves as a learner, but also to their gender and their culture.

An example of this not working is the Maori child – starting school with a negative stereotype of their culture, through no fault of their own. Among other things, laws that were made have allowed this to happen. Maori and Pakeha are still not starting out equal. To be proud of your culture makes you more likely to be intelligent. The negative stereotype that Maori students have to deal with cannot be underestimated. Educators must be willing to show that they value Maori culture and be prepared to show bravery by trying to incorporate it into our classrooms.

It was said that unless there is a learning disorder, building up brains 1, 2 & 3 should mean that Brain 4 (where literacy lies) should just roll out as a natural course. It is my belief that this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t spend time and effort on the foundations of pre-literacy – reading to your children will always be important and useful.

Growth Coaching started to resonate with me pretty soon in the workshop, partly because it made sense, but also because it started to feel familiar. I know I’ve worked with the GROW model before, and so this wasn’t too far to go to get to the GROWTH model. I remembered learning about it and using it in a previous school, and it felt nice to be thinking about it again.

It was said there are three elements of coaching. This graphic, although not from the course, is similar to what was shown.

The coaching process, in this case, is the 8 step GROWTH Coaching Model, which is in a way the development of the GROW model. The inclusion of the T and the H mean you are far more likely to achieve your goal – as they talk about the barriers and how to get past them.

Some important points and tips that I found about coaching skills:

Coaching is a process – you don’t have to be an expert in the content. You need to ask the best questions.

You can have the aides with you – e.g. the questions you need to use for coaching situations.

Use the coachee’s words. – connect in, clarify that you are on the same page. Try to simplify their words – try to get it down to 20 seconds

Sympathy can be a spiral downwards.

$5 questions, not $5000 questions – the best questions are succinct and short. By being succinct you can move the conversation on.

To combat “I don’t know”, try, “If you did know, what would you do…”

Active listening attitudes – being “present” mindset

avoid “me too”

remember you think faster than people can speak

Listen for content and feelings. Look for the content and take the feelings out. As they override the content. Come back in a non-judgemental way.

Don’t finish others sentences.

Behaviours – nodding, etc…

We practised coaching several times, and it was quite tricky. At times thinking of the best questions to use was difficult. It was really useful to have the book open to the page with sample questions to refer to. A goal I have is to build up a bank of questions that work well for me in coaching sessions.

The last element is the coaching “Way of Being”, which sounds a bit wishy washy when you say it like that, but is actually really relevant and helpful.

Coaching way of being:

Humility – not going in as the knower – the beginning mind (be like the child), discover

Belief in change.That somebody can change. The outcome for learners can happen. If you think they can’t, deal with competency

Respectful curiosity– how could I have done what I did better. Want to be curious, but respectful.

Intercultural sensibility

– Racial and cultural difference in coaches and coachees dissipated. Can empathise with others. Generational and cross cross-cultural

and other awareness. Emotional intelligence. Makes you more successful. Notion of self and concept of others.

Confident– not cock-sure, but confident that you’ve got the tools and have the capability to make a difference.

During the course we also worked on giving effective feedback, which was really useful. We covered things to watch for in conversations and how to cope when giving difficult feedback. Both things that will be relevant for me in the future I believe.

I’d like to delve further into Coaching in my practice, so I’m looking at starting it with two of my teachers soon. They are willing participants and I think it will help them to improve their practice as well as my own. It could become a really useful tool for me to use when working indirectly as part of the RT:Lit service.

Do you believe in fate? If you do, you might consider it serendipitous the way my attendance at The Growth Coaching New Zealand’s Introduction to Leadership Coaching two-day workshop in Palmerston North this week. I only discovered the workshop last week as I was spending some time preparing my proposal for indirect support as part of the Resource Teacher of Literacy (RT:Lit) service in my cluster. Fortunately, I was able to enroll in the course and take the time from my working week to undertake it. I’m really pleased I did.

The word coaching had leapt out at me in my Professional Practice Manual (PPM, MOE, 2016). When outlining indirect supplementary support it says it “involves the RTLit supporting/coaching the classroom teacher to deliver appropriately designed learning opportunities within the classroom programme”. As I am creating a proposal to maximise my indirect support with schools, teachers, and students, I suddenly thought I would try and find some professional development around coaching.

Growth coaching was recommended by a twitter friend, and also the website looked excellent. Also, a big plus was it was in Palmerston North, not too far from work. Anything I can do during the working week within my area gets a gold star in my book.

Enough with the preamble, let’s get down to it…

The first aspect we looked at was the difference between mentoring and coaching. I’ve had Mentoring in my job description before, so this was interesting for me. Basically, it would seem –

Mentoring is more directive – hierarchical – someone you want to emulate

Mentor has the knowledge and experience that they are going to impart. “This is how we do this…”

Whereas, for coaching –

Coaches allow people to discover

For a coach, it is not your story – it is not up to you to give the answers…

A coach does need to clarify what the person said. Don’t share opinions. Empathise, don’t sympathise.

Through coaching we want people to learn, not to be dependent.

Developing the culture where it is done for themselves. Teaching people to think, Self-responsibility.

A coach does not know where they are going to end up.

Initially, I was not sure this was going to work very well for my job – RTLits need to give resources and ideas, and model or demonstrate how things can be done. Where did that fit into coaching model? I also have a place I want (even need) to end up – with accelerated progress towards the standards for referred students. I feel better now about its place though and where I can fit it in. I also feel that coaching would not be the only tool I would use as part of my indirect model, but for some teachers, it could be extremely valuable.

This diagram was not one from the course, but I did like the addition of advising and also the questions in italics underneath – I think in my job I will need to slip up and down this scale for different situations and different teachers.

I very much liked the idea that coaching was done “with” the person being coached, not done “to” or “at” them. It is about the coachee eExamining their own beliefs and assumptions. Letting them talk and verbalise helps them. I also like that coaching is individual – it is important to establish relationships and is about the pace of the person. However, this is another difficult factor to get into education with so many time pressures! It is about achieving the goals of the individual.

Where are you today? (Existing state)…

Where are you going? (Desired state – is it feasible)…

How will you get there? (Strengths, Motivation, Environment, What will help? Support? Access? Barriers?) COACHING comes in here.

Coaching had two outcomes that I thought were actually vital to my success with indirect support for teachers:

Awarenessof the changes they need to make and move to acting on it rather than being acted upon.

Responsibility – a commitment to moving forward. Responsibility and ownership for the change.

An interesting longitudinal study was done by Joyce & Showers:

A fellow learner at the course summed it up when we discussed that an average idea from the person will trump a fantastic idea from someone else as they will take ownership and responsibility for the idea, and ultimately see it through to success (or change it if need be!). Looking through my notes, I think this came from Tony Stoltzfus:

Your own insight is more powerful than my advice.

A less optimal solution the coachee develops often produces better results than the ‘right answer’ coming from the coach.

So, it would seem coaching is great right? What is it though, and how do we do it? More in Part 2…coming soon…